In mid-February, hundreds of CyberCorps students and recent graduates logged into the program’s virtual career fair, cautiously hopeful of finding a federal job that would fulfill the requirement to serve in government in return for their scholarship.
In past years, many CyberCorps grads had walked away from the annual fair with job offers in hand. The event gives scholarship recipients a chance to connect directly with agency recruiters and apply for jobs on the spot.
But this year, the typical in-person career fair had been shifted to the virtual platform. Instead of the 75-plus agencies that typically showed up to the in-person fair, roughly 40 agencies were at February’s virtual event.
And many of them didn’t have any job openings. Some had virtual booths staffed by chatbots rather than people.
Some agencies that did have openings were promoting jobs that weren’t specific to cybersecurity. Scholars said the FBI, for instance, advertised 1,000 job opens for generic special agent positions. Other agencies were only advertising openings for mid- and senior-level positions, rather than entry-level roles.
Rather than being able to apply in-person, most recruiters were telling the CyberCorps scholars to apply for any openings through USAJobs, defeating the purpose of the exclusive fair.
“Things are not ideal,” one CyberCorps student, who graduates in May, told Federal News Network on the day of the fair.
Their challenges at the virtual fair punctuated a difficult 14 months for recent and soon-to-be CyberCorps scholars. Even though last year’s federal hiring freeze has been lifted, scholars continue to see a shortage of opportunities following the Trump administration’s workforce cuts.
Federal News Network spoke to four CyberCorps scholars on condition of anonymity. Several said they’re now considering private sector jobs and claimed many of their colleagues are doing the same.
CyberCorps participants who don’t start a federal job or another qualifying profession within 18 months of graduating typically will have to pay back the scholarship, which could run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“I’m looking at private, because I need to support myself, especially if I need to pay this back,” the CyberCorps student said.
A key pipeline under pressure
The challenges faced by the CyberCorps grads threaten to upend what has been a relatively small but steady program that has shuttled young cyber talent to federal agencies for nearly 25 years. The CyberCorps program is funded through the National Science Foundation and administered by NSF in partnership with the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Homeland Security.
The NSF reported in 2023 that more than 4,500 individuals had graduated from the CyberCorps program since 2001. The program’s annual enrollment now regularly tops 1,000 students.
For federal agencies that have struggled to compete with the private sector for cyber talent, CyberCorps has provided them with access to students from top-tier cybersecurity programs. Hundreds of graduates have gone onto careers at the National Security Agency, the Energy Department, the Defense Department and other agencies.
Recent cyber policy reports have recommended strengthening the CyberCorps to boost the federal government’s access to early career cyber talent. Lawmakers have introduced legislation to expand the program in recent years as well.
“If CyberCorps recipients are willing and able to enter the federal workforce, the hiring process should not dissuade them from fulfilling their obligations when they could easily turn to the private sector,” a 2024 report by Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology argues.
But CyberCorps scholars now say they wouldn’t recommend the program to students due to the federal hiring challenges they’ve encountered under the Trump administration, as well as the lack of assistance from NSF and OPM in navigating those issues.
“When the federal government is on the one hand, continuing to fund this program, and on the other, refusing to effectively honor their word by closing off the pathways that these students would otherwise take, that’s really sending a dangerous signal about the value of having a career in public service to effectively, at this point, multiple generations of students,” Jack Burnham, a research analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told Federal News Network.
‘Cutthroat’ federal job market
The Trump administration’s national cybersecurity strategy, released in March, places a priority on building “talent and capacity.” It declares the administration will “eliminate roadblocks that prevent industry, academia, government, and the military from aligning incentives and building a highly skilled cyber workforce.”
OPM is also pushing to hire more early-career employees through initiatives like a new online portal.
But CyberCorps scholars say the real-world opportunities for young professionals don’t line up with the rhetoric. A search in the 2200 Information Technology job series on the USAJobs portal, for instance, shows just three openings for recent graduates.
The previous assurance of finding a federal job was a big draw for students, who run the risk of having to pay back tens of thousands of dollars in debt when they join the program.
“When I entered the program and I agreed to the contract, we could apply anywhere,” another CyberCorps student who graduated in December 2025 said. “Most places were going to hire at least a couple of times a year. That is no longer the case.”
In addition to special hiring events like the career fair, the CyberCorps Scholarship-for-Service statute also allows agencies to make noncompetitive appointments for graduates, along with other streamlined recruiting authorities.
But CyberCorps scholars said it seems like agencies are no longer offering those advantages, even as they compete with a larger pool of applicants, such as recently laid off feds, for a smaller number of jobs.
“It’s no longer there because of complete cutthroat nature and limitations of the federal job market right now,” another December 2025 CyberCorps graduate told Federal News Network.
Sophie McDowall, a research associate at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, said a stable market of federal jobs has been a key feature of CyberCorps.
“When that stability is undermined for all of the students, there is a promise of a higher paycheck in the private sector,” McDowall said. “Stability is part of the cost benefit analysis for students that are going through the program … although it’s not guaranteed, it is a clear path to a position.”
‘Drained and demoralized’
The scholars also say OPM, which administers policy for the SFS program, has offered few assurances or detailed responses when students and graduates have raised concerns about the lack of job opportunities.
“The distance and coldness from OPM has been draining and demoralizing,” one of the recent graduates told Federal News Network. “It’d be great if we had an organization that felt like it was there to support us.”
OPM’s press office declined to answer questions for this story on the record. But an official, speaking on background, told Federal News Network that the CyberCorps SFS program “continues to actively engage agencies to align hiring needs with the program’s talent pipeline.”
“This includes targeted outreach informed by agency staffing plans and discussions with chief human capital officers,” the official said. “In addition, the program is exploring ways to broaden outreach and increase engagement across a wider range of agencies. We are confident that the vast majority of scholars will find employment with federal agencies by the end of the fiscal year.”
The OPM official added that the program shifted the 2026 career fair to a virtual event “due to the federal hiring freeze and uncertainty about when hiring would resume” in fiscal 2026.
While the hiring freeze lifted in October, the official said planning for the in-person event began in May 2025 and “NSF could not justify the associated costs without clarity on agencies’ ability to hire by January 2026.”
Given the lack of federal opportunities, some of the CyberCorps scholars said they’re also frustrated by what they see as OPM’s reticence to loosen the rules around what jobs meet the program’s service requirements.
Current regulations require that at least 70% of scholarship recipients are placed in a federal agency. Another 20% of recipients can be approved for cybersecurity roles in state and local government, public or nonprofit critical infrastructure organizations, or within Congress. And 10% of scholars can serve as cybersecurity educators at qualified higher education institutions that offer SFS scholarships.
“This distribution is managed holistically by NSF to meet program objectives while supporting workforce needs across sectors,” the OPM official said. “Guidance provided to principal investigators emphasizes supporting scholars in pursuing opportunities across all eligible categories.”
OPM approves some deferments
Following up on a pledge from November, OPM also confirmed that it has offered an additional 12-month deferment of the service requirements for those who were “directly affected” by last year’s hiring freeze.
CyberCorps scholars say those who graduated between December 2024 and May 2025 have generally received the 12-month deferment on top of the standard 18-month timeline.
“The program continues to review deferment requests on a case-by-case basis, taking into account individual circumstances,” the OPM official said. “Program leadership remains attentive to evolving hiring conditions and is assessing appropriate measures to support affected scholars.”
But many of the CyberCorps scholars said they can’t wait months after graduating to earn an income. And they added that the deferment doesn’t address the broader instability in the federal job market. Scholars noted the upending of the federal workforce over the past year, including the firing of probationary employees last spring and the ongoing push to shrink many agencies.
One recent CyberCorps graduate told Federal News Network they had gone into the private sector last year, but had recently secured a conditional job offer from a federal agency.
“That’s the terrifying part now,” the graduate added. “I’m happy that I now have an offer in hand and I’m going to be able to do what I prepared to do. But now I’m scared about it, because the minute I leave the private sector job, my stability risk goes way higher based on the past year.”
There have been some signs that federal cyber hiring could rebound.
While the Department of Homeland Security is currently operating under a partial government shutdown, DHS recently approved a Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency plan to make 300 hires this year. That comes after roughly 1,000 staff left or were laid off from CISA over the past year.
The potential ramp up at CISA and the promise of more cyber workforce actions under the new national cyber strategy hold some promise. But McDowall said federal agencies will have to work hard to regain the trust of young professionals like the CyberCorps scholars.
“We’ll see if there’s more of that follow through on prioritizing the hiring, especially for cyber, but there still is some of that lasting damage in the trust relationship,” McDowall said. “There’s a long way to go for that, in my opinion.”
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